Then in San, we have our masked, mysterious ‘ princess’ of the wilderness, who first appears as a potential antagonist, sucking and spitting blood out of the bullet wound of her giant wolf companion. In Ashitaka, we have our prototypical hero, who embarks on his journey, burdened with life or death stakes and instilled with a moral purpose. One of my favorite aspects of Princess Mononoke is how it subverts and elevates the classical love story between two young people. Naturally, Man risks his own livelihood when he upsets it so. Nature, seen from a wider lense, is nothing else but a long-standing and forceful balance upon the world. The woods bear them down upon all challengers, when the time and place demand it.
The realms of life and death are his alone.”Īnd so, the forest, and in an ascended sense ~ the forces of nature within it and around it ~ are resources which wield life and death in equal measure. “ The forest spirit gives life and takes it away. And it’s an anime movie!, two so-named Gods of the forest themselves by the humans, that the spirit of the forest has sole dominion over the realms of life and death.
It carries the same spectacle as a high art action movie but with the gravitas, character, and message of literature. Princess Mononoke was the first Miyazaki film I saw and remains my favorite.